What Are Variant Walkers in The Walking Dead? Most walkers follow more-or-less the same set of rules in The Walking Dead. As such, chances are good interested individuals can guess "variant walker" is just a term for walkers that deviate from these rules. The rules of drama mean the franchise focuses on variant walkers with differences that make them more dangerous rather than less dangerous to the surviving humans. So far, that means smarter, stronger zombies. However, the mere existence of [...]